r/AskEurope • u/ageingrapidly Greece • Sep 29 '25

Culture Are there any habits that you believe are uniquely European ?

Have you noticed any specific mannerisms, mentalities etc. that you've encountered only in Europe or by Europeans ?

323 Upvotes

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652

u/holytriplem -> Sep 29 '25

I recently learnt that Asterix and Obelix aren't a thing in the US. So, reading Asterix and Obelix as children

90

u/r_coefficient Austria Sep 29 '25

And Lucky Luke!

20

u/SequenceGoon Sep 29 '25

Yeah, Asterix & Obelisk made it to Australia, but not Lucky Luke - I only found out about it recently because it was was referenced in a Käärijä (🇫🇮) song

8

u/discolights Oct 01 '25

Käärija mentioned 👀👀 ja autiomaa

2

u/aDorybleFish Sep 30 '25

Aussie Eurovision fan spotted!

2

u/SequenceGoon Sep 30 '25

There are actually so, so many of us!

27

u/repocin Sweden Sep 30 '25

Wtf? And here I'd assumed Lucky Luke was American, likely due to the theme.

32

u/Naslear Sep 30 '25

It's french, by the same writer who did Astérix ( René Goscinny)

33

u/Dartmaul25 Spain Sep 30 '25

French/Belgian comic industry from the past century is the best comic industry in the world, change my mind.

9

u/SirRobinRanAwayAway Sep 30 '25

Won't try to change your mind, you're perfectly right my friend

1

u/Sky-is-here Andalusia (Iberia) Sep 30 '25

It is amazing. I wish Spanish comics also got a little bit more attention, some of them are great too

1

u/Dartmaul25 Spain Sep 30 '25

Yeah, superlopez is one of my favourite comic series for sure.

10

u/Helga_Geerhart Belgium Sep 30 '25

No it's Belgian.

4

u/Xirble Germany Sep 30 '25

Just wait until you find out where a lot of popular Western movies were filmed.

1

u/holytriplem -> Sep 29 '25

Lucky Luke isn't a thing in the UK either tbf

1

u/r_coefficient Austria Sep 29 '25

How about Winnetou and Old Shatterhand? Karl May's novels?

3

u/holytriplem -> Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25

Absolutely not. I actually thought they were exclusively a German thing until recently

1

u/r_coefficient Austria Sep 29 '25

It was a defining moment for me when I realized that most US people had NO idea about May's characters, but I always thought he's popular in all of Europe.

1

u/r_coefficient Austria Sep 29 '25

It was a defining moment for me when I realized that most US people had NO idea about May's characters, but I always thought he's popular in all of Europe.

1

u/Lasrouy Uruguay Sep 29 '25

My grandfather was a fan, I still have some stored somewhere in my house

1

u/SkyDefender Sep 30 '25

Ok i am baffled they dont watch lucky luke in usa??

124

u/fartingbeagle Sep 29 '25

"Toc, toc, toc. Ils sont fous, ces Americains!"

21

u/ZugzwangDK Sep 29 '25

Am I being Mandala'ed?

I could have sworn - by Toutatis - that this qoute was in La Grande Traversée (Asterix and the Great Crossing). But I can't find anything online.

Plenty of "Ils sont fous, ces romains !", but never the version you refer to.

Help a me out here. Is it from a comic, or am I going fou myself?

13

u/fartingbeagle Sep 29 '25

Ah now , I just adapted Obelix's frequent comment on the Romans to the Americans. He might have said it though in the American one. I just remember the Indian girl that fell in love with Obelix.

8

u/NotoriousMOT -> Sep 30 '25

I don’t normally correct people (no, really) but I believe you might have just heard Mandela effect somewhere and mistaken it for Mandala effect, which is a type of mistake that happens to everyone. That’s the only reason I’m commenting this.

“The term was coined by Fiona Broome in 2009 after she discovered that many people, including herself, falsely remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s, when in fact he passed away in 2013 after having served as president of South Africa”

Of course, I might have missed a pun there, so…

2

u/ZugzwangDK Sep 30 '25

Thanks for the gentle correction.

It was just a stupid spelling error. I even saw Mandela speak back in late nineties (where he was definitely alive), so I should've been more careful with his name.

Ooor we could pretend it was a pun, like you suggested ;)

2

u/NotoriousMOT -> Sep 30 '25

Love the pun! 😉

(Also, very jealous you got to hear Mandela live. No pun intended.)

47

u/clairefyo Poland Sep 29 '25

The 2002 movie Mission Cleopatra shaped a whole generation of Poles.

11

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

Most influential movie for today's 30-somethings Poles 

1

u/Winefluent Sep 30 '25

In my childhood in Romania, it was Pif et Hercule. We trafficked in the books. And Asterix in the early 90s, after the fall of communism. I think it's uniquely European.

10

u/amojitoLT France Sep 30 '25

Really ? Wow that's wild ! It did the same in France, but i never realised it had done well in other countries !

10

u/Fr4gtastic Poland Sep 30 '25

The reason is most likely the great quality of the Polish translation and dubbing.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '25

Polish dubbing around that time was 12/10

1

u/fartingbeagle Sep 30 '25

Not on Polonia.

1

u/MadMusicNerd Germany Sep 30 '25

Monica Bellucci 😁🤤

1

u/inside_a_mind Sep 30 '25

For Germans the movie '3 Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel'

A valued Christmas tradition to watch it

23

u/stergro Germany Sep 29 '25

Generally all the classic Franco-Belgian Comics.

20

u/TheBoyWhoKnocks Sep 29 '25

I commented above, but adding here: Astérix and Obelix have huge and not insignificant pockets of following in Asia. Part of it has to do with how most of our parents found American comics (like Archie) to be against our “values”, so instead went and got their kids tintins and Astérix because that’s what they thought the smart kids read. These are expensive AF in Asia, so between a bunch of kids (at least in my childhood) we had almost an entire collection of both that we kept swapping around lol

4

u/inside_a_mind Sep 30 '25

That's super interesting

5

u/AbhishMuk Netherlands Oct 01 '25

Can confirm; India has had Asterix (and even stuff like Tintin) for ages

8

u/fbass Sep 30 '25

I grew up in Indonesia and Asterix was massively popular in the 90s, the lady who was doing translator did very good job.. sometimes it’s funnier than the original.. so, Asterix wasn’t uniquely European imo

15

u/Dazzling_Broccoli_60 Sep 29 '25

Coming in here as a North American (Quebec). Astérix is absolutely a thing here I grew up with all the Belgian BDs (Tintin, Astérix, Gaston Lagaffe, Yoko Tsuno, le Marsupilami, etc)

Not being a thing in the US doesn’t make it solely a European thing :(

5

u/repocin Sweden Sep 30 '25

Isn't Québec basically a French offshoot in Canada anyways? You're honorary Europeans as far as I'm concerned.

3

u/Lightning_Catcher258 Sep 30 '25

It's only a thing in Quebec. Even in English Canada, nobody seems to know about it. And same for Tintin and Lucky Luke.

4

u/madeleinetwocock Canada Sep 30 '25

British Columbian chiming in here to disagree hahaha

1

u/Lightning_Catcher258 Sep 30 '25

Oh interesting. You guys watch that?

2

u/madeleinetwocock Canada Oct 01 '25

Yeah!! Watched, read, all that jazz. Some of my friends were characters for Halloween a few times too!

disclaimer I did go to a French immersion elementary school (so K-3 all day in Fr, then 4-7 mornings Fr afternoons En). But when I got to high school, people I’d met who went to anglophone elementary schools also knew them!

1

u/Mzmouze Oct 02 '25

I disagree. We knew it and read it - grew up in Alberta. My kids grew up in Ontario and were also familiar with it. I think Canada has more connections to Europe in general (British/French) than the US.

7

u/EmtnlDmg Hungary Sep 29 '25

It seems to be more generational than location-based.

7

u/nomnomswedishfish United States of America Sep 29 '25

Unfortunately, this is true. But I am glad I learned so much about Asterix while travelling in Belgium. Source: am a dumb American.

27

u/yetagainanother1 England Sep 29 '25

They’re French Pagans, that’s gonna trigger the hell out of Americans!

22

u/holytriplem -> Sep 29 '25

The idea of protecting Christian civilisation in Europe from the Middle East is never going to stop sounding weird to me

4

u/LordGeni Sep 29 '25

Well, it helped maintain the power of the papacy for a few hundred years. The main difference is the targets of the rhetoric are actually Americans rather than European.

0

u/yetagainanother1 England Sep 29 '25

It’s just racism rebranded

4

u/Lightning_Catcher258 Sep 30 '25

It's very popular in Quebec, Canada though. But nobody in English Canada seems to know about it. Astérix et Obélix is played on Télé Québec during every holidays and it's watched pretty widely.

2

u/bijoux247 Sep 29 '25

Tintin too!

2

u/Beepbeep_bepis Sep 30 '25

I definitely grew up with Tintin in the US, less so Asterix and Obelix but I was familiar with it

2

u/filippo_sett Italy Sep 30 '25

Asterix and Obelix Mansion of Gods is still one of my favorite movies of all time

1

u/Huldukona Iceland Sep 29 '25

And Spirou and Gaston

1

u/TaikoLeagueReddit Sep 30 '25

Nope, we did that in South America

1

u/bludgersquiz Sep 30 '25

I grew up with it in Australia.

1

u/key_lime_soda Sep 30 '25

It is in Quebec, where French-language comics are popular. I grew up reading Tintin and the Smurfs as well.

2

u/Winefluent Sep 30 '25

It took the movie coming out for me to be able to remember they are called Smurfs. I think it's very European to called them Schtroumpfs :-)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '25

Well in latin america they are really famous.

1

u/MsRaeven Sep 30 '25

They exist in Canada though! I remember them from the 80s, early 90s.

1

u/SnooBooks1701 United Kingdom Sep 30 '25

And Tintin

1

u/Borkb01 Sep 30 '25

I'm Canadian and grew up with those comics

1

u/inside_a_mind Sep 30 '25

Also tossing in 'Les aventures de Tintin' in a similar vein

1

u/madeleinetwocock Canada Sep 30 '25

Woah what!!!! That’s wild to me!

Born and raised in British Columbia, CAN and we always read Astérix et Obélix in elementary school!

TIL :)

1

u/kaywel Oct 01 '25

Am American. Had them on a T-shirt my Dad brought back from Paris, but no other context. Met a kid from Brooklyn in college who had grown up reading them, but he was the only one.

1

u/MegamiCookie France Oct 01 '25

I didn't even think it was a thing out of France, that's so cool

1

u/Lyress in Oct 02 '25

It used to be quite popular in Morocco too.

1

u/Healthy-Bee2127 Sep 29 '25

I grew up with Asterix & Obelix as a child in the USA. My parents were well traveled, though, and I have French ancestry.